Political engagement

Submission to PASC enquiry into Government IT policy 1 .This submission synthesises some discussion from the IdealGovernment.com blog, work by Ctrl-Shift Ltd and work of Mydex CIC. 2. It makes some overall observations on government IT before focussing on the architecture and role of personal data. It envisages a “Big Society” future of more participative […]

Ha! The clever old Tories have just raised the bar several notches in our highly specific ideal-gov world. The “makeitbetter” site, where we were all invited to pile in to point out the glaring shortcomings in a leaked draft government IT strategy, has struck an unexpected positive note with the addition of an “our proposed […]

The new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority has a consultation up on MPs expenses. Do it, people! If we don’t fill it out now and feed back, we can hardly complain if we don’t like how MPs’ expenses work in future. It’s a deceptively simple looking web site which is easy to use but pretty thorough […]

Britain’s ideal government IT strategy (#idealgits) first needs a plain top-level statement of the role of technology in the context of the society we’re trying to become. We’re going to try to set this out here. It has to address the big issues directly and succinctly. This means it has to support the overriding economic […]

It’s time to say what we want from government IT. Let’s do this together. Let’s say “wouldn’t it be better if” about how tech affects transparency, costs and the quality of public services and how they affect our lives. @ntouk and I have long since been fed up with what one senior Whitehall official yesterday […]

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data. IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he […]

Murdoch’s tabloid columnist David Aaranovitch has stepped up as first cheerleader in Michael Wills’ long-promised riposte to our highly successful and influential Database State report earlier this year for JRRT. He’s no doubt well paid to use forceful language, and strike provocative poses. But he doesn’t get it. What the hell has Facebook, the greatest […]

In light of the Smarter Government launch Ive been racking my brains for that Morike quote. Can only find Hegel on the German Wikipedia die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts) But that’ll be it. As dusk beckons, Minerva’s owl takes flight. After many years, […]

There’s a commentable draft of the Australian Government 2.0 taskforce’s report Engage now online. The central recommendation is: A Declaration of Open Government by the Australian Government Accompanying the Government’s announcement of its policy response to this report, the Australian Government should make a Declaration on Open Government, stating that: * Public sector information is […]

From The Times Francis Maude, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, has written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary, calling for a moratorium on the £100bn of government IT contracts in the pipeline. This raises a load of questions. What’s the list of contracts? Is it complete and definitive? One can imagine suppliers […]